Prosecutors have rewritten charges against a man for burning a copy of the Koran after being accused of resurrecting the offence of blasphemy “by the backdoor”.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has amended the charge against Hamit Coskun, 50, who set fire to a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London so that he is no longer accused of harassing the “religious institution of Islam”.
MPs and lawyers had claimed the phrase was tantamount to reintroducing a blasphemy offence and “plainly defective” as the “religious institution of Islam” was not a person under the Public Order Act through which Mr Coskun was being charged.
